


where i want to be (but i guess im already there)

by FoxGlade



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, but like.. by one of the people in the relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23956588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxGlade/pseuds/FoxGlade
Summary: “Partner’s a bit of a handful, then?” the woman at the stall says, quietly enough that the Doctor perhaps shouldn’t have heard it. At any moment Jamie is sure to answer with a scowl, insisting that she has the whole thing wrong--“Aye, that’s one way of putting it,” he hears Jamie say, in that greatly put-upon tone. “Wouldn’t have him any other way, though. But don’t tell him that.”
Relationships: Second Doctor & Jamie McCrimmon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	where i want to be (but i guess im already there)

**Author's Note:**

> and now for my true love in life: 2 and jamie being very stupid together. this is set during the big finish audio Helicon Prime (set within season 6B), but all you need to know is that 2 and jamie are hanging around on a resort planet waiting for trouble to hurry up and find them. i wrote this as my favourite genre, Weird Quasi-Romantic Committed Friendship, so u can read it as platonic or romantic as u like. title from talking head's This Must Be The Place.

For a creature from such a naturally linear species, Jamie truly had the most remarkable resilience to time travel and its natural oddities. The Doctor often found himself thinking this, especially when one of his admittedly long-winded explanations of futuristic technology or complicated temporal physics was met with a comfortable “oh, aye”. It was not that Jamie didn’t understand these things, or didn’t try - he did, and succeeded most of the time, although he rarely if ever reached the same understanding as the Doctor. Instead, he would learn of this new technology, or temporal dilemma, or alien species, and then simply recontextualise it into something more understandable to his 18th century existence, leaving him free to get on with whatever needed to be done without any further questions or headaches. It was a wonderful thing to watch, and on the occasions in which the Doctor bore witness to it through his touch-telepathy, he found it impressive, and rather charming to boot.

Sometimes, however, the process took a little bit of time. 

“And what size for your husband?” the woman at the counter asks, polite smile firmly in place. The Doctor pauses in the act of picking up his shoes.

“Oh, he’s--” But there’s really no point in correcting her, so instead he continues, “He’s just over there, I’ll ask -- Jamie! What size -- oh, no, what am I doing, he won’t know. The same size as me, I should think.”

“Of course,” the woman says. Her smile looks a little more real, now. She turns to take another pair of shoes from the wall, and the Doctor feels a hand on his shoulder.

“What were you calling me for?” Jamie asks, looking concerned. “We haven’t been kicked out already, have we?”

“What makes you think we’d be kicked out?” the Doctor says.

“Well, it happens often enough with you, doesn’t it?”

“This is a perfectly lovely establishment, and we’re going to have a perfectly lovely time bowling. Absolutely no reason to kick anyone out of anything,” he says mildly, and then to the bemused woman holding out a second pair of shoes, “Thank you, dear.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, smiling widely. “Have a good time, you two!”

“We’ll do our best,” Jamie says, sounding greatly put-upon, and leads the Doctor away by the arm as she laughs. “What was that about, then? She seemed sweet on you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the Doctor says. Their lane is at the end of the room, the vibrant hard-light bumpers separating them from their neighbour lit up in a soothing sea green. “Or rather, I think she thought the two of us were sweet. She thought we were a couple, you know.”

“Eh?” Jamie has already sat down and begun removing his boots to replace them with the garishly decorated bowling shoes. He looks up, bewilderment on his face, boot in hand.

“Well, I can see why,” the Doctor says. He seats himself as well and fiddles with the screen where they’ll have to type their names. “Helicon Prime is quite the romantic destination. Lots of retired married couples spend their time here, it’s a large portion of their clientele. Statistically speaking, to anyone who doesn’t know us, we are likely to fall into that particular category.”

He taps DOCTOR into the field for Player One, and then goes ahead and writes JAMIE for Player Two. When he looks up, Jamie has a look of deep thought, and he still has his boot in hand.

“She thought we were married?” he asks. For a moment, the Doctor worries that perhaps his 18th century Scottish values are breaking through, and decides distraction may be the better part of valor.

“And retired,” he responds. “Which is preposterous. You don’t look nearly old enough to be retired, and neither do I, surely. Put your shoes on, Jamie, there’s a good chap.”

Jamie blinks and then hurriedly pulls off his other boot, grimacing as he squishes his feet into the slightly-small shoes and ties the laces. “Well, I’m not old enough to retire, that’s for sure,” he says, and then falls silent.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” the Doctor demands.

“Och, are we gonna play this bowling game or not?” Jamie complains.

“I’m barely 500 years old, I’ll have you know,” the Doctor grumbles. “That’s quite young, for a Time Lord. Only a few years older than you, in human terms.”

“Oh, aye!"

They bicker in their usual fond manner for the rest of the game, although it becomes less fond on the Doctor’s side once Jamie gets a hang of the game somewhere around the fourth round and starts scoring strikes instead of gutter balls. But it’s fun even so, and the Doctor would put the whole conversation to rest in his mind, were it not for the tactical looks Jamie keeps giving him when he thinks they won’t be seen. The sort of look he gets when he’s learning, recontextualising, understanding.

  
  


There’s nothing petty about the Doctor’s decree that they should spend the day relaxing at the lagoon, rather than try out another competitive activity, no matter what Jamie says about their relative levels of hand-eye coordination.

“I feel like we should be doing something,” Jamie says with a frown. The Doctor pats his shoulder.

“We are doing something,” he replies, “and that something is relaxing. Come on, aren’t you always complaining about being in mortal peril every other week? Go and buy us some dates, won’t you?”

“Eh? What’s that supposed to mean?” Jamie says, baffled. 

“They’re these small dried fruits, and you can buy them by the bag over at that little stall, there. Perfect for the beach.” He hurries over to the stall, trusting that Jamie will follow. The young woman at the stall smiles the same pleasant smile as every other staff member at the resort. “Just the one bag, please.” He looks around as the woman scoops the fruit into a delightfully rustic little paper bag, and catches his eye on a flash of silver hair. “Oh, that’s Mindy! We must say hello!” He takes a few steps in that direction, hand raised to wave frantically.

“No, we mustn’t,” Jamie groans behind him. “You’ll drive the poor woman mad!”

“Partner’s a bit of a handful, then?” the woman at the stall says, quietly enough that the Doctor perhaps shouldn’t have heard it. The staff at this establishment certainly like to make assumptions. Perhaps it adds to the friendly and all-knowing persona of the ideal service worker? He doubts it will do much in this case -- at any moment Jamie is sure to answer with a scowl, insisting that she has the whole thing wrong--

“Aye, that’s one way of putting it,” he hears Jamie say, in that greatly put-upon tone. “Wouldn’t have him any other way, though. But don’t tell him that.” 

The woman laughs, and the Doctor is frozen on the spot, struck by this unexpected turn of events. That is, until Jamie raises his voice to call out, “Doctor, do you want these wee fruits or not? You’ve got the credit chip!”

The Doctor blinks once, twice, and then turns around. “Oh, so I do. Dear me.” He hurries back to the stall and pays. He even lets Jamie carry the bag.

Jamie seems happy enough to do so, wandering over the beach proper with barely a glance back at the Doctor, although he stays close enough. There’s nothing troubled in his expression, no sign of thought at all -- he seems perfectly serene as he sits down at the edge of the sand to take off his boots and socks, only giving the Doctor an expectant little look when he fails to do the same. 

They carry their shoes and their bag of dates to a shaded spot with a chair and a hammock strung between two oddly polka-dotted trees with large fronds poking out of it at regular intervals. Jamie eyes the hammock with some suspicion, but sets his jaw in determination and advances upon it like a wild hog to be wrestled. 

“Oh, Jamie, not like--” the Doctor begins, but Jamie just stretches his arms out to flatten the fabric as much as he can before falling face first into it. “Oh dear. Is that comfortable?”

“Don’t you worry about me,” Jamie says, voice muffled. He wriggles, squirming slowly to one side, and after a few wobbles that have the Doctor hovering fretfully, he finally emerges triumphant, laying properly in the hammock, face up and relaxed, kilt still firmly and thankfully in place. “Cleverer than I look, aren’t I? This future business isn’t so hard to figure out.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t,” the Doctor murmurs. He reaches for the chair and drags it over so that his back is to the tree, and he can face Jamie properly. "Jamie…"

"Hmm?" Now that he's lying comfortably, he's clearly decided that now is as good a time for a nap as any. He cracks open his eyes lazily, not a care in the world.

"That woman, at the stand. When she called me your partner, it was because she thought we were married."

Jamie opens his mouth, and for a moment the Doctor thinks he's going to shout something disagreeable, but instead he just yawns, stretching his arms out and then resting them beneath his head. "Aye, makes sense," he says, entirely agreeably.

"Does it?" the Doctor says, trying to seem less flustered than he is. "You didn't think so yesterday."

"Aye, well, I hadn't thought about it yesterday," Jamie says defensively. "And now I have, and it makes sense.”

“Then you should have no problems explaining it to me!” This mess of confusion and frustration at his own lack of understanding isn’t new, but it is the first time it’s been directed at something that Jamie apparently understands perfectly, and he finds that he doesn’t like the feeling one jot.

“Well, I told you I’d look after you,” Jamie says, matter of fact. “And I told you I’d never leave you again.”

“You did,” the Doctor says.

“And when you came back for me, after the Time Lords sent me away, you said you wouldn’t let it happen again, that you’d do everything you could to make sure we keep travelling together.”

“I did,” the Doctor says, softly.

Jamie smiles. “Well, it’s as good a vow as any,” he says reasonably. “Though I wish you’d told me. The future is a mad place, if that’s all it takes now to be married. Do you think it happens a lot, people getting married accidentally?”

“Oh, I don’t -- well.” He thinks of Cameca and the Garden of Peace. “Surely not a lot. But, Jamie--”

“I don’t mind,” Jamie says suddenly, sitting up, his face gone serious. “I mean, I do think you’re mad, and this whole thing is mad, but I wouldn’t change any of it, not for the world. If being married to a wee man from the stars means being with you, the way we are now, then I wouldn’t change that for anything.” He flushes suddenly and adds, “So long as you don’t start trying to take me to bed.”

“I really have no intentions towards anything of the sort,” the Doctor says. Jamie looks at him earnestly, equal parts relieved and apprehensive, and honestly, after such a moving little speech -- well, apart from that bit at the end -- how can he let him down by telling him, no, in fact, they aren’t married at all? Or at least not by any traditions that the Doctor is aware of. For all he knows they could have partaken in some local ritual unknowingly -- he seems to make a habit of that, after all. 

“Thank you for saying so, Jamie,” he says quietly. “You must know it’s the same for me. Just as we are now is rather perfect.”

“Good,” Jamie says, less apprehensive now and more relieved. “That’s good.” He looks away, rummaging in his sporran for a few moments before emerging with some dark object. “So we’ll be getting rings soon, then?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s improper, not having wedding rings. How would anyone else know we’re married? I don’t fancy having to be told again by some wee lass handing out shoes.” He settles back in his hammock and unfolds the object into a pair of sunglasses, which he places over his eyes. He seems utterly serene once more, and completely, anachronistically ridiculous, lying in a hammock wearing an 18th century kilt and 23rd century sunglasses. But then, he always was rather good at recontextualising things as needed.

“You know, you’re much cleverer than you look,” the Doctor tells him.

“No need to butter me up, I already married you,” Jamie replies, unaffected.

“Hmm. Yes, I suppose you did.” And the Doctor settles down with his book, quite content.


End file.
